Natalie Sirett – Artist

“The environmental impact of human activity on birdlife suggests that, as a species, we care little for avian survival. Yet our culture and language are crowded with bird symbols that reveal a deep and passionate connection to our ‘feathered friends’. Birds symbolise love, hope, renewal; our hearts soar and flutter, we rise phoenix-like from ashes, while it is the dove who finds the first symbol of peace. The bird in flight symbolises freedom, while a trapped or injured bird represents imprisonment. My Flight Boxed Series is inspired by this tension between constraint and flight. These artworks were made on boxes because they can be locked and unlocked, opened and closed, like wings. The drawings, or ‘nets’ were made as practical diagrams, rather like the nets of 3D shapes we make in school. They were essential to help me wrap the birds around the boxes interior and exterior surfaces.”

Natalie Sirett was born in Heswall, Cheshire and currently lives and works in London. She received a BA in Fine Art from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and studied painting and printmaking at the Royal Academy Schools, London. Her work explores symbols and stories embedded in our culture. “I am in some ways a contemporary symbolist or icon painter. I want to make art where object and meaning, substance and symbol unite.”